A grad school update for you: I've decided to drop the idea of social work for now, and concentrate on gender and development studies. That's what I'm really most passionate about, and I figure I can always go back to do social work later if development doesn't work out! After all, there's no reason to be locked into one field forever.

So far, I've narrowed my choices to the following:
-gender studies, School of Oriental and African Studies
-gender and development, University of Sussex
-gender, development, London School of Economics
-international development studies, University of Guelph
-international development studies, Dalhousie University

Now it's just a question of getting in! (And funding, of course, which will be mighty tricky for the UK schools. Eep.)

The power has been out at my place for over two weeks. No joke, they're apparently installing individual power meters and that's the reason we've been in the dark for a good eighteen days now. It was suppose to take three days, I'm not quite sure what happened to that. The funny thing is that after about a week, a number of people in the estate bought generators. I'd say that about a third now have generators running at all hours. I understand that it's inconvenient not to have power, but really, generators for a private residence? Then again, these are the same people who have electric fences and razor wire in an estate which is already gated, guarded 24/7 and in one of Nairobi's safest neighbourhoods. So I guess they just live on a different plane of existence. It is probably a lot harder if you have kids, though.

As for me, I'm content with reading and writing by candlelight at night. The biggest annoyance is the lack of hot shower, but that's what the stove and wash basin are for. Most people in Nairobi don't have a shower at all, so I'm just going with the flow.

Now that it's Ramadan, the neighbourhood is alive with the sound of prayer several times a day. Well, it was before too, but now the prayers are longer. It's a very meditative sound, the muezzin pouring out his devotion. Today I heard a young boy reciting the call to prayer, with adult voices in the background coaching him when he stumbled. It was very sweet. All of this prayer also compliments the book I'm reading now, The Autobiography of Malcolm X. It's a fascinating, powerful read. My friends and coworkers who have seen me reading it have all begged me to lend it to them, which is interesting. I guess Malcolm X, who did travel in Africa and visited several heads of state, including Jomo Kenyatta, before his assassination, is pretty popular here (as is Martin Luther King). I guess Malcolm X was successful in connecting the civil rights movement in the States to African independence movements after all.

I've also noticed that Kenyans are big readers of biographies and inspirational books, particularly Christian inspirational books. There's not too much interest in fiction, which is a shame because there are a number of great contemporary Kenyan writers, like Binyavanga Wainaina, who don't get too much local exposure. There are literary events around town, but they're always in ridiculously posh neighbourhoods, at expensive clubs which aren't exactly accessible to the average Nairobian. Hopefully we'll see some change in the exclusive nature of literary culture in years to come.